[Archived] Liverpool Match Review 2 - 2

[vyeo]

i put 100 dollars on liverpool at 1.70.... lets hope im wrong

good to see javi get another run possibly

hey mate, i hope i don't come across as dissing you cos i'm not...

but still, i have to say this... really... HOW COULD U BET AGAINST US?? although i myself have been tempted on numerous occasions...

but anyway... hope u lose the 100 today. heh. no hard feelings k.

[krislu]

i put 100 dollars on liverpool at 1.70.... lets hope im wrong

good to see javi get another run possibly

hey mate, i hope i don't come across as dissing you cos i'm not...

but still, i have to say this... really... HOW COULD U BET AGAINST US?? although i myself have been tempted on numerous occasions...

but anyway... hope u lose the 100 today. heh. no hard feelings k.

He wants to put himself in a kind of win-win situation, rather than all or nothing..

Nothing wrong with that!

Edited October 30, 2004 by krislu

[Ewood Dream]

*Terrified*

I can only see defeat for our Rovers and I haven't got any real expectations for this match so I'll just wait to get my hope back when we have the games against Man.City and Fulham...

Cisse, Luis Garcia and Baros will be licking their lips at the prospect of facing Short, Matteo and Neill.

If I had the reigns:

Friedel

Reid Todd Short Gray

Emerton Djorkaeff Ferguson Gamst-Pedersen

Gallagher Stead

=================================

[krislu]

Lineup today!

Friedel

Neill, Short, Johansson, McEveley

Emerton, Tugay, Ferguson, Reid,

Bothroyd, Dickov.

Subs: Enckelman, Flitcroft, Stead, Djorkaeff, Todd.

Good to see McEveley back, and GREAT to see Matteo is not even on the bench!

Would have played Flitty instead of Tugay, and no MGP on the bench today..

[DP]

Team....

Freidel

Neil

Short

Johansson

McEveley

Reid

Tugay

Fergusson

Emerton

Dickov

Bothroyd

Great to see Jay back in the team and Johansson can't do any worse than Matteo (although how much does playing with Amoruso hinder you?).

Strange one up front though, but our other Jay has shown a lot of promise when he's come on as a sub.

Stead in for Dickov and maybe Todd in midfield behind Fergie and that would be my choice.

Let's just show some fight and belief and I will be content with that.

[modes98]

Just hope if bothroyd gets a chance he puts it away this time. We can't afford to miss chances in this game!

Nice look to the defense, dissapointed micky g is out, i think he is a great player for us. However something needs to be done to sort out the titanic.

[vyeo]

delighted that matteo is not even on the bench!!! i'm feeling more optimistic already.

however, not entirely sure about the choice of mceveley, but fair enough if sparky think's its a good option.

disappointed with the midfield lineup, as we'll almost certainly get emo on the left again where he just isnt effective. would have stuck emo on the right, played reid and fergie in the centre, and either MGP or JDP on the left.

would have gone for djorkaeff and bothroyd upfront myself, but again kudos to sparky for handing jay the chance.

come'on u blues!

[deftangel]

Bothroyd get in! Only 1-1 but I was driving to the nearest bridge after 6 mins!

COME ON ROVERS!

[Ewood Dream]

Interesting changes by Sparky, I don't really have any objections to the line-up, it's great to see McEveley back in the starting line-up, he obviously must of impressed the staff in training and the omittance of Matteo is always going to be a positive. Still dissapointed to see Morten Gamst not used and also I think maybe we COULD HAVE (like you could have paid more attention in school) replaced Tugay with Djorkaeff for a bit more creative flair.

COME ON ROVERS!!!!!

[deftangel]

EMERTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounded a screamer on the radio though I was too busy going nuts to hear!

2-1 HT

[Rovermatt]

It wasn't a screamer. The Liverpool defence copied our recent defending and play the ball straight to him. He just guided it into the corner. Beautiful.

45 minutes away from the improbable.

[tcj_jones]

For those not watching the match, its half time and we look 10 times better than we have all season. Bothroyd and Dickov are linking very well, while Ferguson and Tugay are looking a good pair in midfield as well. Tugay has made quite a few probing passes, Ferguson likewise and both have been giving it plenty of aggression. Mceveley looks very strong and effective when players are running at him, though lacking confidence going forward. Neill and Reid have been pretty poor and Traore has been given acres of space on their left flank. One poor defensive mistake in particular by Neill and in part by Short cost us dear. |Johansson hasn't looked bad. Emerton has been excellent - who said he couldn't play on the left? two great balls in and plenty of runs. Our first goal was such a beautiful move full of pace. We have bossed the midfield with majority posession and Bothroyd has been dropping back to help out.

Right now Bothroyd is the main difference, but everyone is giving twice the effort that I have seen of late.

Keep it up rovers, great display!

[emglch]

i think the cisse's injury will really scare off liverpool whenever they play blackburn away.

Last time was carragher.

It's becoming quite a statistic.

[Ewood Dream]

2-2 so far.... 89 minutes gone or so..

[USRoverME]

2-2 full time

decent result, although, truth be told... we COULD HAVE (like you could have paid more attention in school) (perhaps should have) had more....

Bothroyd looked very dangerous, I think this defence could work for me (if mceveley would stop baning free kicks into people). Even Tugay looked good at times (although his boot to Baro's stomach was nasty). Wild game, probably a dream to watch in person, good attendance too!

[vyeo]

if anyone offered me a 2-2 scoreline for this match, i'd have snapped his hand off. although it could have been better, we certainly can't moan about this result.

for the first time in a long time, i saw passion from the players. certainly much much better than the shambolic performance last week anyway. the players chased, harried, tackled, jumped with heart, putting in 100% for every challenge. yes, mceveley's freekick was poor and naive, but overall i thought he had a good match. although we conceded 2 goals, the defence looked much more solid than any i've seen this season. nils-eric johanssen i thought was superb. barry ferguson had a good game, and bossed the midfield for quite a bit. in bothroyd, we may have just found the real deal. certainly must be in the team ahead of stead from now on, and this will provide the stage for stead to work harder and come back better. but man of the match must be emo. full of aggressive running, whenever he got the ball, he only had one aim and that was the by-line. no fancy tricks, just raw power. and he looks to have adapted to the left wing at long last.

overall, i'm feeling very optimistic. we even got a pretty decent referee for once. all in all, sparky's work seems to be rubbing off. certainly the passing was much better today, off the ball running was good, and the players certainly looked much much fitter. bring on norwich!

[Shaddy]

I really respect Dickov's work rate... but I feel now is the time he needs to switch roles with Stead. Stead should start, working with Bothryod's strength to get more shooting opportunities, and Dickov should come on later, trying to exploit the tired defense.

[Radagast]

Baros's foot was as high as Tugay's.

Decent result, should have been better - unfortunate blot on McEveley's copybook after an otherwise assured display. Defence still looks shaky, however, I'll never feel 100% confident with Johansson in the team. Still, a much improved performance with an excellent display from Brett Emerton on the left wing (although I'm sure MGP should have been brought on for a run out to build his confidence of course.... ). The sheer power of his running will scare the life out of any full back when he's in full flight. I pray for consistency. Bothroyd had a very good first half, with or without the goal, showing some deceptively nice close control, certainly provides another option.

And Lucas Neill has to go.

That's it for me, I'm off to get "pashed oot ma trumpet" as we say.

EDIT> Forgot about Cisse, poor fella. He has the Radagast famiy's best wishes.

Edited October 30, 2004 by Radagast

[USRoverME]

Another thought about our wings. Certainly Emo was man of the match for us, as he had a hand in both goals on the left. And for as much bashing as reid gets, and he did disappear at times today, he seems to back track well. I can't think of any mistakes he made...

Might we have seen a lineup that hughes will trot out a few times in a row? I like the paring of Dickov and bothroyd actually. Dickov had a few chances today that he missed getting a foot to the ball by a whisker. Bothroyd heading crosses down to Dickov, I see that working.... maybe I've had too many pints....

[tsnuf]

Just finished watching, and its 2am so heres my thoughts quickly:

Johansson was great, almost never put a foot wrong! McEvely had some very nice defensive play, but the free kick he gave away for their equalizer cast a shadow over that.. Emerton was excellent down the left (or Josemi was horrible on the right), but putting Reid on the right didnt really add any options. Tugay looked good till his high kicks, was so scared he was going to get sent off again.. Dickov was excellent, I think he fully deserves his starting spot, with Bothroyd and Stead interchanging as his partner. Neill was poor.

And wow.. that was the nicest referee we've ever had, I think if someone had gone down in the box he'd have pointed to the spot..

Was sickening watching Cisse's leg snap in slow motion in the TV replays though (4 of them in a row).

I think everyone that played tonight deserve to start next week, except for Neill and Reid.

[rover6]

Well done to the players. It's a sign of how well we played that I'm a bit disappointed that we don't hold onto the three points

Good on Hughes for having the boldness to kick out Gray and Matteo for the time being. McEveley and Nisse did alright (except Jay's blunder). No surprise that MGP was not involved, after all, Rovers don't want to pay that appearance fee to Tromso....

And what is it about McEveley? The guy has got previous that would make Kevin Muscat shrink in fear. Ok that's an exaggeration but so far Jay has managed to break Hakan Sukur's leg in training, damage Mark Delaney's ankle ligaments, dislocate his own knee cap and now play a passive role in Cisse's leg break. And he's only played a handful of first team games.

Edited October 30, 2004 by rover6

[Aussie_Rover]

i put 100 dollars on liverpool at 1.70.... lets hope im wrong

[WaffleWag]

Emo is superb, great goal and a really made it easy for bothroyd who looked good all game, I was disappointed to see the he was substituted instead of Dickov.

good to see McEveley back although i had a terrible pass at pools second, he will have to have his eyes checked. he also broke cisses leg, that looked really bad.

2-2 is a great result IMO we can really build on this also very good atmosphere on Ewood

[chris]

well predicted 2-2. but little optimism unless this standard can be maintained, Will Tugay play like that next week? probably not, and would put Dickov on in the last 30 minutes and not start him, because his scoring record's rubbish, and Bothroyd and Stead could be a potentially good partnership that needs a chance, 5 huge games coming up now, some 6 pointers

[yellowsubmarine]

2-2 is a good result for us, considering how poor we were in the last couple of games. I thought i saw a new Rovers in the second half of the first half. Full of fighting spirit.

Hopefully we can start to build on this draw.